About Michael Young

Head of Americas Climate Model Product Management, RMS

Michael leads a team that establishes requirements and features for all of the RMS North and South America climate models. Michael's responsibilities include overseeing the submission of RMS products to regulatory reviewers, such as the Florida Commission on Hurricane Loss Projection Methodology (FCHLMP).
Michael has led studies of insurance mitigation programs for the state of Florida, as well as the World Bank. In his past 14 years at RMS, Michael has also worked as a lead wind vulnerability engineer, a director of claims and exposure development, and as the head of the mitigation practice. He has worked in commercial wind-tunnel laboratories doing studies on wind loads for a variety of buildings.
Before joining RMS, he was involved in the development of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) HAZUS-MH software for hurricane risk assessment, and he taught courses on the use of HAZUS hurricane and flood components. Michael has also led studies on mitigation cost effectiveness for building codes such as the 2001 Florida Building Code and the North Carolina Building Code. Michael holds a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering and a master's degree from the University of Western Ontario in Canada in Wind Engineering.

The story of Hurricane Maria, the thirteenth named storm of the 2017 North Atlantic hurricane season, really started with landfall over Dominica on Tuesday, September 19 — as a category 5 hurricane. It was then Puerto Rico’s turn. As Maria approached, the system did weaken slightly during an eyewall replacement cycle, and made landfall on Wednesday, September 20, near Yabucoa, as a category 4 hurricane. It was the most intense landfalling hurricane for the island since the 1928 San Felipe Segundo Hurricane, with RMS HWind reporting maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour (209 kilometers per hour).